Nothing to Disclose
I found out about
DreamWorld Hermetica from Portrait of Mai's
post about the $5 promotional kit they were offering for a brief time in order to introduce customers to the company. I ordered the $5 kit in warm tones, with the
Vapor base and Nekhbet II and III colors as my foundation choices. First class shipping within the U.S. was a very reasonable $3.25, so for $8.25 I received a total of one lip gloss, two mini jars of eyeshadows, one mini jar of blush, and 15 little baggies of powder. (I'll get to that in a moment.)
DreamWorld Hermetica used to be known as
DreamWorld Minerals. They closed for a while, then reopened
under the name DreamWorld Hermetica on August 1, 2013. The brand hadn't been on my radar previously, so I'm not sure about why they closed or how long they were closed before reopening and rebranding themselves--possibly for the owners to go
back to school for esthetician training.
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| Swatches, top to bottom: Need, Dead Reckoning, Keys to the Repository, Fairey Queen, Chillaxin, Spellbook. Left side is swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion, right side is swatched over UDPP and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy. Photo taken in indirect sunlight, no flash. |
Packaging
My samples came in a bubble wrap envelope with two plastic baggies inside. There was a nice handwritten thank-you note on the back of a business card (which seems to have been repurposed from before the shop closure--it doesn't bear the name Hermetica, and one of the URLs on the business card was crossed out with a Sharpie).
The Lip Wand is shrink-wrapped, which I appreciated. The ingredients are printed on a translucent sticker attached to the outside of the shrink wrap. None of the other items had ingredients printed on them.
The mini jars are clear on the bottom, with a black screw-on lid; two had stickers on the lid, and one had a sticker on the bottom. They were sealed with clear stickers, but on closer inspection, I found a scratch across the side of the lid of one jar, and slightly grubby fingerprints on the inside of the seal stickers. This makes me wary and a bit unhappy; although I didn't see signs of fingerprints on the insides of the jars, the presence of fingerprints and traces of excess eyeshadow/blush on the outside made the product seem a bit less hygienic and professionally packaged.
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| Grubby. |
The smaller samples are in Ziploc baggies. Most of them had the name of the color printed on them on a small, round, white sticker; some also had the company name, and one just had the name of the color written in Sharpie directly on the baggie, instead of having an official sticker. Many of the colors indicate on the label if they are lip safe or not, which is a nice touch.
The sample packaging was quite annoying because I did not remember what was supposed to come in the kit, and nothing was printed with what
type of product it was--so is this baggie of orange powder labeled "CHILLAXIN" supposed to be a blush or an eyeshadow? How about this shimmery, rust-colored "FAIREY QUEEN"? I had to look up the full list of what was supposed to be included in the kit to figure out the broad categories of the different little powder baggies, and then the individual color names to figure out what was supposed to be used where.
For the record, here is what came in my kit:
- 1 full size Magick Wand Lip Gloss (or Magick Lip Wand? the packaging and website say two different things. 9 g/10 mL)--Summer Solstice, "soft coral"
- 2 mini jars of shadows (0.5 g each)--Keys of the Repository (website lists this as Keys to the Repository) and Dead Reckoning
- 1 mini jar of cheek color (0.5 g)--Need, described on the website as "bright coral with slight shimmer"
- 2 shadow samples--I actually received five eyeshadow samples: Chillaxin, Fairey Queen, and three from the Hocus Pocus Halloween collection: 1693, described as "deep purplish brown in color", "Spellbook" (listed as Spell Book on the site), described as "a deep burgundy with multiple shimmers to indicate the spells that were used! " and Hallowed Ground, described as "a soft irridescent [sic] green with a warm undertone."
- 1 cheek or bronzer sample--I didn't receive this, as far as I can tell.
- 1 Glo Worm sample--Mummy Glo, "a soft shimmer"
- 1 Illuminating Powder sample--Banana Illuminating Powder, "Light Yellow, perfect for lighter skin tones with yellow undertones such as Tethys, Nekhbet, and Artemis, also works well to tone down redness."
- 1 Illuminating Glo sample--Ectasy [sic], listed correctly spelled as Ecstasy on the website
- 1 Creme sample--Butterscotch, silica and clay formula
- 2 foundation samples--Nekhbet II and III in the Vapor formulation, which is what I requested; I also got four extra foundation samples that I had not asked for, Tethys III Vapor, Hestia III Vapor, Chang O III Luna, and Hecate III Cloud. Although some of these were listed in the neutral or olive foundation categories, they all had a yellow undertone and medium depth, which I appreciated, and I liked the fact that they included the other two foundation formulations so I could try them.
To sum up, I didn't get my blush/bronzer sample, but I did receive three more eyeshadow samples and four more foundation samples than what I had asked for--all for a grand total of $5 plus shipping, a pretty great deal.
Selection
DreamWorld Hermetica offers a wide variety of products:
- Mineral foundations, in a very respectable range of 25 different base colors, eight color depths, three different formulations and a color-correcting option called Tara
- Four different finishing powders/highlighters
- Undereye and color-correcting concealer powders
- Several different face and eye primers
- Lots of eyeshadows
- A few different lip products (lip gloss, lip tars, and an interesting palette called Lip Changlings [sic] with shades that are meant to change other lip colors--black to darken, blue to cool down a shade, etc.
- Blush
- Bronzer
- "Nighttime minerals," something that seems pretty weird to me--a powder you're supposed to wear at night for skincare
- Brushes
Vegan shopping experience
Ingredients are listed on a single, easy-to-reference page, but there seem to be many typos and omissions on this page, so I would email the company if you have questions on a specific product; some formulas appear to be vegan, but others contain ingredients like carmine and beeswax. The brushes are all synthetic and hence vegan.
Samples
Eyeshadow: mini jars available
Blush: mini jars available
Lip products: no samples available
Foundation: 1/2 tsp sample baggies available for $2 each
Cost
Here are costs for some of DreamWorld Hermetica's products:
| Product |
Sample |
Full size |
| Foundation |
$2, 1/2 tsp |
$20.50, 45 g |
| Creme Finishing Powder |
$2, 1/2 tsp |
$15.99, 8 to 10 g |
| Undereye Concealer |
$1.50, 1/4 tsp |
$8.99, 3 g |
| Eye Primer |
n/a |
$10.99, size not listed |
| Eyeshadow |
$2.75, 1/4 tsp |
$7.99, 3 g |
| Lip Wands |
n/a |
$12.50, 10 g |
| Lip Chromes |
n/a |
$14.50, 15 g |
| Blush or Bronzer |
$2.75, 0.5 to 0.75 g |
$13.99, 8 g |
| Eternal night powder |
$3.50, 1/4 tsp |
$28.50, 10 g |
A few comparisons to other indies: Fyrinnae charges $2.25 for a 1/4 tsp Arcane Magic eyeshadow mini, $6.25 for a non-Arcane Magic full size jar of 3 g. Meow charges $1 for a 1/4 tsp foundation sample. Shiro charges $8 for a 7 g jar of blush. This puts DreamWorld Hermetica's prices a bit higher than average, but they're not outrageous.
Customer Service
I have not contacted DreamWorld Hermetica with any questions.
Quality
Everything I tested aside from the Cloud foundation and highlighters seemed to be of good quality--and I suppose my quibble with the highlighting powders might be more an issue of personal taste than of quality.
TAT
I was impressed with how quickly my order shipped despite its being placed during the popular $5 promo. I ordered on September 26, and my order was shipped on September 28.
Shipping
DreamWorld Hermetica will
ship anywhere in the world, including Italy, which is unusual--not sure if it's due to import taxes and regulations or an unreliable postal service, but I've seen a lot of vendors online state that they'll ship anywhere in the world
except Italy.
DreamWorld's shipping page states it's $4.50 for first class shipping, $24 for Priority Mail, but when I made a sample cart and checked shipping for Australia, first class shipping for samples started at $5, or $10.95 for full sizes.
US shipping rates start at $3.25 (first class mail, samples only), or $4.85 for first class mail with full sizes/brushes included.
Canadian shipping starts at $4.25 for first class mail/samples, $9 for full sizes/brushes.
Personal Thoughts
OK, I tend to be annoyed by indie companies that make their websites sloppy, complicated, and difficult to navigate. I'm also annoyed by the general aesthetic that involves a confusing mishmash of names that are probably meaningful to the owner but mean nothing to anyone else. I don't want to have to use a glossary to navigate the site! Just tell me if something is a concealer or a highlighter or a finishing powder, full coverage or sheer, etc. DreamWorld is far from the worst offender out there, but part of me just wants boring old numbered foundation shades (or at least names that have something to do with standard colors, like Ivory and Caramel) instead of a list of names, letters, and numerals that sounds like the family tree of the Pharaohs--it's a hop, skip, and short sideways walk from "Nekhbet III V" to "Tutankhamen XVIII, Living Image and Ruler of the Upper Kingdoms of the Great River, Eternal God-King Who Offers Full, Bismuth Oxide-Free, Non-Nano Coverage for Oily And Acne-Prone Skins." There's nothing actually wrong with that, I guess, but I just feel vaguely embarrassed by it all.
Anyway, I actually hadn't explored DreamWorld's site much before ordering the intro package. Although I was impressed by the quick turnaround on my order, once I started looking around the site more, I was somewhat turned off by the typos, omissions, and inconsistencies. And the Delphi forum, which brought me back to the halcyon days of the mid-90s, when I was exploring AOL chat rooms and Geocities neighborhoods on my 14.4 modem (already blazing fast compared to the old 2400 baud...) All of these aesthetic complaints are really par for the course when shopping for indies, but I thought I'd mention it anyway, because I'm a curmudgeon.
The site is fairly easy to navigate, though, and includes skin swatches for most products, which is nice.
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| Swatches, top to bottom: 1693 eyeshadow, Summer Solstice lip gloss, Banana illuminating powder, Mummy Glo, Hallowed Ground eyeshadow, Ecstasy Illuminating Glo. Left side of the shadows is swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion, right side is swatched over UDPP and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy. Photo taken in indirect sunlight, no flash. |
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I'd been looking for a nice copper eyeshadow for fall and Keys of the Repository fit the bill--a glorious sparkly, metallic copper shade, much more orange-toned than it appears in the jar, where it looks more golden. I was quite happy with the eyeshadows in general; they had good lasting power, pigmentation, and blendability over my usual eye base, Urban Decay Primer Potion. I did a look over UDPP with Keys of the Repository on the mobile lid and 1693 blended into the crease, and it lasted for 12 hours with no creasing or fallout. Chillaxin was the only disappointment, as it looked very patchy over Pixie Epoxy, I think due to the matte yellow/orange base that didn't adhere and spread well over the Pixie Epoxy.
The Summer Solstice lip gloss seems thick, nonsticky, and comfortable to wear. However, I despise lip colors with lots of shimmer, and this is an almost metallic orange, something I'd never pick out for myself. It comes across as more of a frosty apricot color on the lips because it's not opaque, at least; you can see from the lip swatch that it doesn't look nearly so alarming on the lips as it does on the arm. I think it might work well layered over a red lipstick to tone it down.
The Banana Illuminating Powder is puzzling to me. Although it looks pale yellow and matte in the bag, it turns into a sparkly, rather silvery microglitter when applied to the skin. It might be good on the eyes, if it's eye safe (not sure if it is or not) but I would never wear this as a highlighter, or to tone down redness, God forbid. It reminds me of the sparkly fake snow stuff they spray on wreaths and plastic Christmas trees during the holidays. I suppose it might tone down redness in the same way that glitter flocking tones down the color of a spray of plastic hollyberries.
The Ecstasy Illuminating Glo was a similar glitterbomb, but with less of a white powdery base than the Banana powder.
The Mummy Glo is a far more subtle, white, shimmery highlighter, but it comes across a bit stark on my NC30 (medium yellow-toned) skin. If I apply enough for it to be visible, it looks sort of white and chalky. If I apply less or rub it in more, the highlight becomes invisible. It might be a nice alternative to Shiseido High Beam White--a similar white illuminator--but I am not sure how the texture compares. I found it hard to hit the sweet spot between invisible and obviously white.
The Butterscotch Creme finishing powder looked chalky and dull when applied heavily, but rubbed in very nicely, becoming undetectable.
The Nekhbet foundation shades were a bit too yellow on me, but the Vapor formulation gave a very nice, light, comfortable finish (Tethys III was the closest, I think, but still didn't feel like a perfect match). Luna felt nice as well, but Cloud felt frankly awful--extremely gritty, coarse, and dusty, like rubbing dirt on the skin. It did give full coverage, but as the color match wasn't perfect for me, this was a bad thing. It seemed like a kabuki mask.
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| Swatches, top to bottom: MAC Studio Tech cream foundation in NC35 for reference (at the wrist, nearly invisible) Butterscotch Creme finishing powder, Nekhbet II Vapor, Nekhbet III Vapor, Hestia III Vapor, Tethys III Vapor, Hecate III Cloud, Chang O III Luna, applied heavily with fingers over skin primed with moisturizer and sheered out a bit to the left side of the photo. Photo taken in indirect sunlight, no flash. |
Notes on the color products I received:
- Need is a warm, medium strawberry pink shimmery shade, leaning coral, almost metallic if built up.
- Dead Reckoning is a buttery, warm, almost peachy yellow/orange gold color
- Keys to the Repository is a metallic caramel copper with golden microglitter
- Fairey Queen is much lighter than it looks in the baggie; it's a very shimmery light rose pink that could almost be a rose gold from some angles
- Chillaxin is a medium orangey yellow with a matte base with matching shimmery microglitter
- Spellbook is a gorgeous warm plummy chestnut brown packed with golden microglitter
- 1693 is a beautiful shimmery dark mauve with an almost wet shine to it. It reminds me a bit of Urban Decay Toasted eyeshadow or Laura Mercier's Amethyst Caviar Stick.
- Hallowed Ground is a spectacularly luminous shimmery pale aqua, a bit like MAC Tilt. It's a bit sheer on its own, but opaque and glowing over Pixie Epoxy.
- Summer Solstice is an extremely shimmery sherbet orange that is sheer enough to let natural lip color peek through slightly.
Bottom line: DreamWorld Hermetica is worth checking out, although I'd give the Illuminating Powders/Illuminating Glo powders and the Cloud foundation a pass--out of the products I received and tested out, I would recommend the eyeshadows and Vapor foundation in particular, if you can find a good color match. My favorite eyeshadows were Spellbook, 1693, and Keys to the Repository. Hallowed Ground is also extremely beautiful, but not really my color.
